Muhammad Ali – thoughtwrestler

When I think of that word “thoughtwrestler,” a word that combines two other words – thought and wrestle – it occurs to me that one of the best examples would be Muhammad Ali, a man who I believe became a champion in a very physical sport by thinking himself to victory.

Consider Ali, the boxer, and how he won. His fights began long before the opening bell because he had a strategy – he thought through his path to success.

At press conferences, he was famous for being a loudmouth, a man making outrageous claims. While it certainly helps hype the fights, it also did something else: it prepared his opponent, not for his opponent’s benefit but for Ali’s.

When some guy is making the kinds of claims Ali was, and in such a public way, how can you not get angry and want to knock the guy’s lights out? Anger is helpful to a point but too much makes you incautious and reckless.

Once the fight began, Ali would dance around the ring, arms up defending himself. And that was pretty much it. His opponent inevitably got tired and frustrated. Tired and frustrated leads to mistakes; it allows defenses to drop. Exactly what Ali wanted.

Ali saw that victory wasn’t just about what he, Ali, did. It was also what his opponent did. So he worked that as much as he did his own performance.

Beyond the ring

Ali also strategized what he did in the social arena, I believe. He worked the loudmouth persona to his own ends.

He changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali when he embraced Islam. He refused to be inducted into the army and go to Vietnam. And he didn’t do so quietly. He did it in a very public way with all the chutzpah he was famous for.

That served two ends: it put those who opposed him off balance and on the defensive while also inspiring and motivating those who supported his causes. Once again he saw it wasn’t just what he did but what others did as well. He saw he could use himself to create the conditions for victory, and he did.

Ali saw that what he did in the boxing ring translated to the social realm. What allowed for victory in boxing would allow for victory anywhere. He puts it this way:

“Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision. They have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”

Pillars of victory

If you go to the web site for the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, you’ll see they speak of, “… six prevailing core values of Ali’s life: respect, confidence, conviction, dedication, giving, and spirituality.”

That sounds an awful lot like what I conceive a thoughtwrestler to be.

I think Ali envisioned success – one of the few of us who did so at the earliest age. He saw what success looked like and determined it could be achieved. He might not have known immediately how to go about it, but he knew it could be done.

Belief in success, a vision of it, makes everything else a lot easier. It made the downs surmountable: “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’”

As physical as boxing appears to be and as limited as a boxing ring seems, Ali succeeded by using his ability to think and see well beyond the ropes.

With his will, he went there.

Do you have anyone you consider to be a thoughtwrestler? Tell us who they are in the comments!

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Image by cliff1066

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